A Fair Thought
None of us spoke about the events of the party for the rest of the weekend. Taylor hardly even said a word to me in the coffee shop on Monday morning, and I didn’t know what to say back. There was obviously something he wasn’t telling me – I could remember just as clearly the fear in his eyes as I could the girl all over Zac.
I shuddered when I thought of that. Every time I remembered it, I felt just a little bit more ill, but I couldn’t ask Zac about that either. I was with Donovan. He could kiss and grope whoever he wanted to. It wasn’t like I had any real reason to hate Christin – I remembered her name when I saw her in the theatre building before class – other than superficial reasons. For most girls, superficial reasons would be enough. For the time being, they were plenty enough for me, too.
Still, I couldn’t voice any of that to Zac. Instead, we sat in awkward silence during lunch. It was strange; no matter how upset we were with each other, we still sat together, side by side, neither one of us saying a word. When we did talk, which was becoming increasingly rare, there was a forced sort of friendliness to it that reminded me way too much of exes who try to stay friends.
“Have you talked to Whitley?”
I was almost surprised when he finally spoke. I pondered the question for a second, then replied. “No, not really. I think I’ll see her at rehearsal tonight. Why?”
“Well…” he began, then seemed to think better of it and instead took a large swig of his soda.
I raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
“It’s kind of stupid. I shouldn’t even bother talking about it,” he said, shaking his head.
“No, go ahead and tell me. I promise I won’t call you stupid. Well, I promise I won’t totally mean it when I call you stupid,” I replied, smiling.
He considered it for a moment. I could almost see the gears in his head turning, rolling my words around and trying to decide what he thought of them. Finally, he began again. “Alright, the thing is… ever since the party, Tay has been acting really strange. I don’t know how to ask him what’s going on, and I figured Whitley might have said something.”
“No, she hasn’t. But we haven’t really talked. Not a heart to heart or anything like that, at least,” I answered, then decided to risk one question. “What kind of weird is Taylor being?”
Zac shook his head, his hair flopping across his eyes. He pushed a strand back from his face and said, “I don’t even know. Really nervous. Uptight. I mean, he always has a stick up his ass, but this is worse.”
“Ever since the party, huh?”
Zac nodded. “Yup.”
“Well,” I said, chewing a bite of food. “You know he did want to leave that place in a hurry. Maybe something happened there to upset him? Do you think? I mean, that would make sense. Fits the timeline.”
“It does, I guess. But I don’t know why he wanted to leave,” Zac replied, then added as an afterthought, “I wasn’t really concerned about it at the time. Too drunk to think about it much, you know.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Trust me,” I said, then quickly decided not to continue that line of conversation. Reminders of our argument and all that happened afterward kept creeping up on me and I didn’t like it one bit. It was like flipping a coin and always having it come up tails when you were hoping for heads. I just couldn’t escape it.
Zac nodded, a tight lipped grin on his face. I knew he was thinking exactly the same as I was. Maybe not exactly the same – I didn’t even know that I had seen him with Christin, although a tiny voice in the back of my head said that the entire thing had been a show put on for my benefit, or detriment as the case may be. He bit into his bottom lip, nibbling the skin gently and I tried my best not to watch, not to think about his lips. But it was impossible.
This wasn’t going to work.
“Hey, guys,” Whitley’s voice called out, her tone not quite matching her cheerful words.
I looked up at her and realized that something was definitely up. She practically collapsed into the chair, looking like she hadn’t slept for days. Even under her makeup, I could see how pale she looked. I wondered if it had something to do with Taylor. Surely it wasn’t mere coincidence.
“Hey, Whit. What’s up?” I said, trying to sound casual. I hoped that, if she wanted to talk about whatever was wrong, she would do so without any prodding. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Taylor. Maybe Zac was just being paranoid about Taylor’s moods.
She sighed into her plate and I realized things were not going to go swimmingly. “Oh, nothing. I’ve just been running through the play all day trying to get ready for tonight.”
“You’re the player queen, how much work can you need? There are no lines,” Zac replied, grabbing a french fry off Whitley’s plate. He was always doing that to people. Maybe it wasn’t just me he was so comfortable with, comfortable enough to impose himself upon them. But I doubted he would shove his tongue down Whitley’s throat… Taylor already seemed to have that covered, at least.
Whitley rolled her eyes at Zac, but chose to ignore his fry-snatching. “Yes, just because I don’t have to speak, it’s clearly easy. I have a ton of blocking to do. My entire role is pantomime! I have to remember all of this choreography and it’s really hard to practice on my own.”
“Alright, geez. I didn’t know, I’ve never done theatre. I don’t know how you guys do it,” Zac replied, still chewing on the fry.
“And playing music is easy? I was terrible at flute. I think I quit band after two whole months,” I said.
Whitley abruptly pushed her chair back and picked up her tray, leaving Zac grasping thin air as he went for a second fry. “Look guys, I’ve got to go. I really need to rehearse some more. I think I’m gonna call up some of the other players and see if they want to meet up and run through the blocking.”
Neither Zac nor I spoke as Whitley stood, picked up her bag and marched off. We remained in shocked silence until her retreating form was completely out of sight.
“What the hell was that?” Zac finally asked.
I turned my head to him. “Well, I think we know she’s as upset as Taylor is. And I doubt it’s just about the play or your food-thievery.”
Zac affected a shocked and offended look. “That’s just ridiculous. She loves me. And she loves when I steal her food.”
“Sure, she loves it just as much as the rest of us do,” I replied.
In response, Zac grasped my fork in his hand and shoveled a heaping portion of rice onto it, then shoved that into his mouth. I really wanted to strangle the boy. He tossed the fork back into my bowl and smiled at me. I didn’t return the expression.
“But seriously, do you think it has something to do with Taylor? She didn’t say anything about him,” Zac said, and wiped a bit of soy sauce off his bottom lip.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t say anything about him in front of you. She wouldn’t want you to know in case it upset you or in case you might run off and tell him what she said. Some people – especially some girls – are like that.”
“Alright, good point,” Zac conceded, “I didn’t think of that. I guess Whitley does seems like that, like she… uh…”
“Like she cares about what people think? Or she likes to have a good reputation. Something like that, yeah,” I replied. “And maybe a bit of a gossip, too. And those girls are always the worst. They try so hard not to cause drama, but it never works. Don’t get me wrong, I do like her. I’m just nothing like her.”
Zac nodded slowly. I could tell he was trying to take in and process what I had said, but it didn’t look like he was really having much luck. “I guess you have a point… but she’ll talk to you about it, right? When I’m not around?”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “It’s hard to tell. Maybe not, because she knows how close you and me are. She’ll still be afraid I’ll say something to you. Which, of course, I will. Maybe I’m a bad friend.”
“I just want to figure out what’s wrong with Tay, that’s all. I’m not Whitley’s biggest enemy in the world, here,” Zac said.
“I know, I know. And she knows that. That’s not the point though. And why don’t you just ask Taylor about it yourself? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?”
“In a normal world, yes. That would be easier,” he replied.
“But you’re gonna tell me that’s not how you guys work?”
He shook his head. “No. Well, kinda. But even if I did ask him, which I tried to, he would just say nothing was wrong. It just seems like he’s really really tense and doesn’t want to talk about anything. Most of all what’s got him so tense.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. I’ll see Whitley at rehearsal tonight and I’ll try to get her to open up.”
That evening, I went to rehearsal early, hoping I would have a chance to talk to Whitley before things got started. No such luck. She was there as well, but she was buried deep in her script in the green room and she didn’t look like an interruption would be welcome at all. I had been in theatre long enough to know that interrupting her – or anyone deeply engaged in their script – would be dangerous to my health and well being. Instead, I took a seat out in the theatre and waited for Dr. Ansary to call things to order.
Our most important scene for the night was the play within a play that Whitley had been stressing about during lunch. Donovan and I would have to be on stage together – something I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I wasn’t certain that he had seen or heard about the argument I had with Zac at the party, and I hadn’t talked to him since I ran out of the room just when things between us were getting hot and heavy. That silence between us was enough proof for me that he knew about everything with Zac and that he was not happy about how I had acted. And although he certainly didn’t know about my indiscretion on the rug, the memory of it just added to the pile of things that made me completely uncomfortable under Donovan’s gaze. I felt like even a scarlet A on my chest wouldn’t make my sins more obvious.
Yet he was cheerful and pleasant. Like Hamlet himself, the ultimate actor, putting on a face to suit his situation. Although we still had one more day before we were absolutely required to be off book, he made a huge show of tossing his script down on the floor before taking the stage to begin. And he was good. I had seen hints of his talent all along, but now, with the book out of his hands, he brought the play to life and I remembered, or maybe only realized for the first time, what had attracted me to him.
My performance, I’m afraid to say, was not up to his standard. When he threw himself in my lap, making Shakespearean come-ons, I could only think of Zac. It seemed like ages ago that we sat on my bed, cracking jokes about the play. My stomach turned and I was thankful to have my book in hand, to focus my eyes on something other than Donovan’s baby blues staring up at me. His eyes were the only thing that betrayed the difference between his act and reality, but I don’t think anyone would have noticed but me. I’m sure, though, that others must know. Everyone must know. We were, after all, surrounded by all these actors and technicians when it had all happened. I was glad we were playing that particular scene; the blush creeping across my face was perfectly appropriate – and probably the only thing about me that was in character at all.
We ran that scene nearly a dozen times, rarely going from beginning to end – stop, start; stop, start. It was frustrating. Whenever we broke for notes, I focused on Dr. Ansary, even though only a few words about focusing on the character’s motivations were directed at me, or buried my face in my script. Anything to keep from looking at Donovan. When she finally declared the scene passable and dismissed us for the night, I let out a huge sigh and took in what felt like my first breath of the night. I rushed off stage and gathered my books, then made my way into the green room in hopes of running into Whitley. Just as I suspected, she was back there, collecting her belongings.
“Victoria, no offense, but…” Whitley said, looking up from her handbag. “You were kind of off tonight. Now it’s my turn to ask: is something wrong?”
I shook my head. “Just Donovan. I couldn’t believe how good he was once he got that script out of his hands. It threw me a little.”
“He throws everyone a little. He gets off to a slow start sometimes, but he always pulls out an amazing performance. Are you sure that’s all that’s bugging you?” Whitley said, throwing the handbag over her shoulder.
“Well, no. Not really. But it’s no big deal. Things have just been tense between us,” I replied.
She nodded. “I know that feeling. But I bet you at least know why.”
Fantastic. I didn’t even have to ask; she was opening up on her own. I frowned a little, hoping to hide the scheming Zac and I had done. “What’s wrong? Something with Taylor?”
“Yeah,” she replied, turning to walk out the door. “He’s just really uptight. Ever since the party. Something freaked him out there, but he won’t say what. And I’m not sure he wants to go out anymore.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked, following her out of the green room and into the hallway.
“I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling I get, you know? He just seems uninterested. Maybe it’s not just me and I’m just taking it too personal. I don’t know. I guess I’ll know for sure this weekend, if he wants to go out or if he flakes out. Again.”
“Just try not to stress too much about it until you know what’s really going on,” I said, pushing open the front doors of the arts building. “Maybe he just saw someone he doesn’t like or something? It’s probably nothing big. He could be stressing about classes and it has nothing to do with you. Give him some time.”
“You’re probably right. I’m just not good at being chill, you know? I stress a lot,” Whitley replied.
I shrugged. I knew exactly what she meant, but I was good at putting up a front. Inside I was a bundle of frayed nerves, but I kept my outside calm and collected.
“So what’s up with you and Donovan, anyway? Come on, spill it,” she said, giving me a little nudge.
I scrunched up my face. “I don’t know. We’ve had a few dates, if you can call coffee and a few minutes alone at parties dates. I can’t really figure him out. He’s clingy sometimes and sometimes he’s a cold, brick wall. But there’s definitely something about him that I can’t help but like.”
“Well, he’s definitely into you. He just has his mood swings. He’s a real actor, that one,” Whitley replied.
Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket to check the time, I gasped. “Oh no, we ran late tonight. I was supposed to meet Zac over at the coffee shop like ten minutes ago.”
Whitley grinned. “And what’s up with you and that one, huh?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I swear.”
“Methink the lady doth protest too much,” Whitley replied, laughing.